1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electrical connector for connecting a hard disk drive (HDD) to a circuit board, and in particular to a contact of an HDD connector which is firmly secured in a housing of the connector.
2. The Prior Art
An HDD connector is mounted to a circuit board and is engageable with an HDD for establishing electrical connection between the HDD and the circuit board. A conventional housing of an HDD connector defines upper and lower rows of passages for receiving first and second contacts therein. Each contact has a tail section bent toward a circuit board for being soldered to the circuit board. A force is exerted on the contact during the bending operation whereby an undesired displacement of the contact with respect to the housing occurs and the securement of the contact in the housing becomes unstable.
In addition, in a surface-mounted HDD connector, a soldering portion of the tail of each contact is bent to be substantially parallel to a circuit board to which the connector is mounted. Due to mechanical properties of the contact, partial spring-back of the bent area of the contact occurs when the bending force is released, causing the soldering portion to be improperly aligned with the circuit board. Furthermore, warpage of the housing which frequently occurs in an injection-molded portion enhances the problem.
It is thus desirable to provide an HDD connector for addressing the problems discussed above.